The simple religious system of deism embraced God, providence, freedom of the will, virtue, and the immortality of the soul.
Whilst English deism with its air of thoroughness made way among the learned, the poison of frivolous French naturalism committed its ravages among the higher circles.
Among the numerous opponents of deismthese are chief: Samuel Clarke, died A.
As an opponent of deism in sermons and treatises he had gained a high reputation as a theologian, when his work, “The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity,” in A.
As Locke accomplished the descent from Bacon to deism and materialism, so =Wolff= effected the transition from Leibnitz to the popular philosophy.
But an ideal deism is commended as the true religion.
Bacon’s empiricism and Descartes’ rationalism, on the one hand, and English deism and French materialism, on the other.
With Locke’s philosophy (§ 164, 2) deism entered on a new stage of its development.
Deism in England spread almost exclusively among upper-class laymen; the people and clergy stood firmly to their positive beliefs.
Deism never made way among the people, and no attempt was made to form a sect.
In England during the first half of the century deism had still several active propagandists, and throughout the whole century efforts, not altogether unsuccessful, were made to spread Unitarian views.
Among the opponents of deism in this age the most notable are Richard Baxter (§ 162, 3) and Ralph Cudworth, A.
English Deismprevailed only to be reconquered into alliance with a tribal god of antiquity, developed into the tutelar deity of Christendom.
There are ten stanzas describing the conflict, Superstition being described as holding "in vassalage a doating World, Till Paine and Reason burst upon the mind, And Truth and Deism their flag unfurled.
The cant of the time was that "deism might do to live by but not to die by.
English deism was not a religion, but at first a philosophy, and afterwards a scientific generalization.
The force of the "Age of Reason" is not in its theology, though this ethical variation of Deism in the direction of humanity is of exceeding interest to students who would trace the evolution of avatars and incarnations.
Paine was vehement in his arraignment of Church and Priesthood, and it was fair enough for them to strike back with animadversions on Deism and Infidelity.
The deism of England in the eighteenth century, which Voltaire was the prime agent in introducing in its negative, colourless, and essentially futile shape into his own country, had its main effect as a process of dissolution.
But this was not the deism with which either Christianity on the one side, or atheism on the other, had ever had to deal in France.
Even the fairest deism is of its essence a faith of egotism and complacency.
Let us endeavour to characterise Rousseau's deism with as much precision as it allows.
In truth the vague, fluid, purely subjective character of deism disqualifies it from forming the doctrinal basis of any great objective and visible church, for it is at bottom the sublimation of individualism.
The deism which the Savoyard Vicar explained to Emilius in his profession of faith was pitched in a very different tone from this.
People constantly speak as if deism only came in with the eighteenth century.
All this bore fruit when he returned home, and his eloquent exposition of rationalistic ideas aroused the usual cry of heresy from the people who justly insist that Deism is not Christianity.
His tutors, Fathers Poree and Jay, from the boldness and independence of his mind predicted that he would become the apostle of Deism in France.
Such were the frequent changes of the seventeenth century--but at its close the power of Deism had evolved a platform on which was to be fought the hostilities of creeds.
His friends wished him to enter the priesthood, not knowing that even in his seventeenth year he had embraced the Deism of the age.
In deep distress, he went to Dublin, where he lectured on Deism until 1824, when he came to London, and founded the Christian Evidence Society.
In England Deism and Naturalism secured a strong foot-hold amongst the better classes, but the deeply religious temperament of the English people and their strong conservatism saved the nation from falling under the influence of such ideas.
Freemasonry was established at a time when Deism and Naturalism were rampant in England, and it secured a foothold in most of the continental countries in an age noted for its hostility to supernatural religion.
The Savoyard Vicar's Profession of Faith" (in Emile) proclaims deism as a religion of feeling.
Da Vinci, Leonardo Deismnaturalism of in Herbert in English thinkers of XVIII.
The watchword of deism was "independence in religion"; that of modern ethical philosophy is "independence in morals.
Carracioli's deismalso has a dramatic function in the story.
That on a voyage to Rome a young man like Misson should be converted to deism by a disillusioned "lewd" priest was in harmony with the traditional English belief in the dangers of Italy.
The Christian doctrine of God why challenged in the present day 96 The deism of the last century.
Evolution restores the truth of the Divine immanence which deism denied.
Augustine both alike held the truths which deism and pantheism exaggerate into the destruction of religion.
Deism stands contrasted with the unbelief of other times by certain peculiarities.
Before the close of the century the real danger from deism had passed, and the natural demand for evidences had therefore in a great degree ceased.
On the comparison of English and French deism see Henke’s Kirchengeschichte, vi.
The second forms a transition to the two latter, being philosophy applied to criticism, and is the form whichdeism now took.
After examining these, other tendencies will meet us, when we trace the decline of deism in Bolingbroke and Hume.
In the period which we are now examining, deism was almost entirely confined to the upper classes.
Those which were called forth in England by Deism were of several kinds.
The monotheism constitutes also a line of demarcation between deism and more modern forms of unbelief.
This form of rationalism differed from the English deismand French naturalism, in not regarding the Bible as fabulous in character, and the device of priestcraft;(722) but only denied the supernatural.
The next form that Deism assumed has reference more to the internal than the external part of Christianity, the doctrines rather than the evidences.
It is theism as opposed to error, rather than natural religion as opposed to revealed: whereas deism always implies a position antagonistic to revealed religion.
Standing thus apart, characterised by intense attachment to monotheism, and placing its foundation in the great facts of nature, deism errs by defect rather than excess; in that which it denies, not in that which it asserts.
In such an atmosphere, deism readily uttered its protest against mysterious revelation.
Deism now taught that reason, or "the light of nature," was all-sufficient.
This is what Deism forgets, with its habits of intemperate affirmation.
One could never draw from them what had never existed in them,--Deism or instruction.
It was the foundation of the higher Deism of the Jewish theology, which possessed beautiful characteristics in spite of its anthropomorphism.
In his Utopia, written to earlier years, he had made deism the ideal religion.
Utilitarianism, Deism and Individualism the Practical Outcome of a Great Movement But it needed time for all this to work itself out.
The general position of English deism was the acceptance of the belief in the existence of God, and the profession of natural religion along with opposition to the mysteries and special claims of Christianity.
The Catholic solution we know, and can definitely analyse and describe; but the vagueness of Voltairean deism defies any attempt at detailed examination.
But for that he would pretty certainly have remained tranquilly in the phase of deism of which some of his early verses are the expression.
Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that it took no turn at all, but carried the godless deism of the English school to its fair conclusion, and dismissed a deity who only reigned and did not govern.
Hence in proportion as this sort of deism stirs the soul of a man, the more closely are his inmost thoughts reserved for contemplation of the relations between the Supreme Being and his own individuality.
Deism became a reality with a God in it in the great Evangelical revival, terrible and inevitable, which has so deeply coloured religious feeling and warped intellectual growth in England ever since.
The deism of Leibnitz was a positive belief, and made the existence of a supreme power an actual and living object of conviction.
The sentiments of exalted deism which are put into the mouth of the noble Zopire were perhaps meant to teach people that the greatest devotion of character may go with the most unflinching rejection of a pretended revelation from the gods.
Hence the untrustworthiness of those critical schemata, so attractive for their compact order, which first make Voltaire a Lockian sensationalist, and then trace his deism to his sensationalism.
We have consideredDeism here for its significant bearing on the religious situation in the eighteenth century.
Deism was important in several ways, especially for France, whence it was carried from England.
Thus Hume, after professing Deism throughout his life, left for posthumous publication his "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion," which amount to the surrender of all forms of Theism.
Deism or Theism is to-day reckoned a quite "religious" frame of mind; but it was the frame of mind of men who in their day were hated and vilified by Christians as much as Bradlaugh in his.
And it is useful to keep in view that Bradlaugh's Atheism, in the evolution of English Freethought, is only a generation removed from the Deism of Thomas Paine, which is much the same as the Deism of Voltaire.
Bolingbroke went pretty far towards a Lucretian or Agnostic Theism; and the upper-class Deism which on his lines held out against the opportunist orthodoxy of Butler, necessarily tended to make its Deity a very remote and inaccessible Power.
Such is the Christian Trinity, whose deepest sense rationalistic deism has scarcely ever succeeded in understanding, that deism, which though more or less impregnated with Christianity, always remains Unitarian or Socinian.
They questioned me about, and I explained to them the existence of deism in France and Europe.
III The Theism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is in some respects different from the Deism of the eighteenth.
Voltaire himself has not completely eliminated the virus: his Deism is not exempt from it.
VI The superiority of Theism toDeism simply consists in its being more Christian.
A loose, easy-going, yet confident deism seemed almost to have superseded Christianity.
Materialism is not rare; deism and Socinianism are very common; and a set of freethinkers, great admirers of Voltaire and Rousseau, Bayle and Mirabeau, seem bent upon destroying Christianity and government.
The Biblical idea runs out towarddeism in Duns Scotus and Calvin.
In the eighteenth century an extreme form of deism held the field and God, as personal will, was conceived as the Creator, who in a dim and distant past had made all things.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "deism" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
